Robert Arrendell, the Leadership Academy for Young Men
By: Kevin Doran
Updated: January 24, 2012
The teacher we're honoring with a News 8 Golden Apple Award was nominated by two former students. Stephanie Bandych and Heather Shattuck couldn't join us for the surprise because they're at college. Robert Arrendell teaches Science at the Leadership Academy for Young Men at Charlotte High School in Rochester.
When we surprised him Robert said "This is a true surprise and I am very honored. I give all glory to God because he's given me this incredible job and now this incredible opportunity to teach young men."
"He's a great teacher because he has a passion for kids" says Principal Wakili Moore. "He has a passion for has job. He goes the goes the extra mile. Our goal is to get all these young men into college or into the workforce. And again Robert is one of the guys that's helping us do that."
We honored Robert in front the entire Academy. He reacted by turning to the students and saying "And I'll tell you young men right now, everyday you start fresh with us. So if we had a good day or bad day, every new day is a fresh start. And I will always be there for you guys. Ok So if we had a rough go of it, the next minute really we're good again."
See what we mean about inspiring? Robert went on to say. "And I want to see everyone in here be successful. and we don't do what we do here just to get a paycheck. I guarantee that right now. We do this because we want to see you guys be leaders. We want to see you be teachers, doctors, you name it whatever your dreams are. And this has been a dream come true for me to be a teacher and to be a part of something like this."
Robert Arrendell is a News 8 Golden Apple Award winner. If you look below you can read the letter we got from Stephanie and Heather nominating him.
Dear News 8,
Mr. Arrendell is the greatest teacher because he has helped us through high school life and into college schooling. He was a very nice and energetic teacher. He is the funniest teacher we have ever met. We would always look forward to seeing him in class everyday. We wish we were still able to be in his class everyday for school but we graduated because he had great faith in us.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Bandych and Heather Shattuck
